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Correspondence
Clinical features of patients with rheumatic diseases and COVID-19 infection in Sarawak, Malaysia
  1. Sharifah Aishah Wan1,
  2. Cheng Lay Teh1,
  3. Benjamin Sachdev Manjit Singh1,
  4. Yaw Kiet Cheong1,
  5. Seow Lin Chuah1,
  6. Ahmad Tirmizi Jobli2
  1. 1 Rheumatology Unit, Sarawak General Hospital, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia
  2. 2 Universiti Malaysia Sarawak Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Kota Samarahan, Sarawak, Malaysia
  1. Correspondence to Dr Sharifah Aishah Wan, Sarawak General Hospital, Kuching, Sarawak 93450, Malaysia; shaishah80{at}yahoo.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/annrheumdis-2020-218425

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    We read with great interest the article by Ye et al 1 describing the clinical features and outcomes of patients with rheumatic diseases and COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. It concluded that length of hospital stay and mortality were similar between patients with rheumatic diseases and non-rheumatic groups, while respiratory failure was more common in patients with rheumatic diseases infected with COVID-19. D’Silva et al 2 and Zhao et al 3 subsequently highlighted the differences of clinical severity and outcomes in their respective cohorts of patients with rheumatic diseases and COVID-19. Fredi et al 4 presented data from northern Italy which supported an association of elderly age and the presence of comorbidities with a poor outcome of COVID-19 infection, rather than the type of rheumatic disease or background medications. The Global Rheumatology Alliance5 has recently published data of characteristics associated with hospitalisation for COVID-19 among patients with rheumatic diseases. We would like to share the …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors All authors were in involved in conception or design, or analysis and interpretation of data, or both. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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